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Thursday, August 25, 2016

Blink a couple of times and
the fall hunting season will be here. So it’s time to start checking the
hunting gear.

It used to be enough to check
just the shotguns, rifles, ammos, knives and other stuff we need for the annual
trek into the autumn woods. Not any more. Now you need to check your fashion. It
is becoming necessary to be fashionable in the forest.

The clothing industry is here
to help you, while of course, increasing corporate profits.

The clothing folks have a problem.
They have produced too many real leaf/tree camo outfits. Almost every piece of
human apparel now comes in camo. There are camo underpants. Camo thongs. Camo
jock straps. Camo bras.

Almost everyone already has
a camo hoody or T shirt. So the industry has been looking for other ways to
sell more. They have found it in the colour pink.

The clothing lobby has been
all over the politicians and they are getting what they want. Wisconsin, New
York State and Louisiana will allow pink hunting clothing this fall as an
alternate to blaze orange. Other states
are considering doing the same.

I can hear the sewing
machines whirring already, spinning out those hot pink vests, caps, gloves,
jackets and pants. We already have seen pink gunstocks, pink camo bows and
other pink outdoor accessories.

All this pink supposedly is about
attracting more women into hunting. More women hunters means more hunting
clothing and equipment sales. And, more money for governments through sales
taxes and licensing fees.

Many women are not
impressed. Promoting pink in hunting is sexist, they say.

“We felt like it was demeaning to us,” various media quoted Sarah Ingle,
Women’s Hunting and Sporting Association president in Wisconsin. “I feel that
the legislation should have taken a deeper look into why the sport was
declining.”

The Wisconsin government’s time would have been better spent determining
what women really need to become interested in the sport, she said.

It’s hard to argue against
pink as an acceptable hunter safety colour. Fluorescent pink, or hot pink, is easily seen in the
woods.

Pink certainly will not
bother the deer, who are essentially colour blind. Their vision is limited to
the blue-green spectrums, so blaze orange or pink does not stand out for them.

Deer do see ultraviolet,
which can cause some objects to glow, or fluoresce. That’s why hunters are told
not to wash their hunting clothing in detergents with brightening agents that
absorb light in the ultraviolet and violet region.

Allowing pink as safety
colour is part of a drift toward making hunting a more upscale pastime.
Urbanites are seeing it as a fit with the locavore/farm-to-table
movement in which people want to grow, gather or kill their own food.

In trendy neighbourhoods of California, you’ll
find a growing number of fashionable chicken coups, where more people are said
to be signing up for butchering courses.

Another factor has been the Becoming an
Outdoors Woman (BOW) program started back in the 1990s but which has gained
increasing popularity only in recent years. Many U.S. states and six provinces
now have BOW inspired programs that teach shooting, hunting and handling game.

I don’t have any issues with blaze pink as a
hunting colour. It doesn’t compromise safety and it’s always nice to have more
choice. It is insulting, however, to say that allowing women to be pretty in
pink hunters will attract more into the sport.

“That’s terribly insulting,” Peggy Farrell,
national director of BOW in the U.S. was quoted in Peterson’s Hunting. “I don’t
want a youth-model shotgun, and I don’t want pink on everything I wear or carry
when I hunt.”

Women who hunt don’t want pink gear for hunting. They want
gear and clothing that is designed for women’s bodies. Gear and clothing that fit
properly an comfortably.

Malinda White, the Louisiana politician who introduced that
state’s blaze pink bill, is also a hunter and says she didn't consider the
concept sexist.

"It also will generate commerce - I guarantee there are
sewing machines going off right now," she said.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

One hundred and two years ago - at
1 p.m. on Sept. 1 to be exact - someone walked past the Cincinnati Zoo bird
cage and saw Martha on the cage floor, drumsticks up.

Martha died of old age at 29. She
was the last living passenger pigeon, North America’s most abundant bird species,
once numbering three to five billion.

Early European settlers described
flocks of passenger pigeons so large they blacked out the sun. When they
roosted in trees for the night, branches often snapped under the weight of
their numbers.

Martha’s passing confirmed the
species extinction and helped to bring about another important event two years
later. On Aug. 16, 1916, 100 years ago this week, Canada and the United States
signed the Migratory Bird Convention in which both countries agreed to uniform
systems of protecting migratory birds.

The agreement was aimed at
stopping the “indiscriminate slaughter” of the billions of birds that made their remarkable journeys north in
the spring, and south in the autumn.

Indeed, the slaughter had been
indiscriminate. Ducks, geese, pigeons and others were shot by the thousands and
shipped in barrels to markets and restaurants in big cities such as Toronto,
New York and Chicago. Thousands upon thousands were packed in crates destined
for factories where their feathers were used in fashionable clothing.

There is one story of one million
bobolinks and rails killed in one month near Philadelphia to provide feathers
for women’s hats.

Until late in the 1800s it seemed
impossible that North America’s huge numbers of birds could become extinct or
see their populations dramatically reduced. As the 20th century
approached, however, people began to realize what was happening.

Organized hunt clubs were diligent
in recording kills in club registers. Entries from the register of the Winous Point Club near Port Clinton, Ohio show what was happening.

Year CanvasbacksMallardsBlue-winged Teal

1880 6651,3192,110

18852379431,019

1890697394603

The migratory bird convention brought some
sanity into a society that believedwildlife resources were limitless and existed solely for human
satisfaction. It led to prohibition of hunting non-game birds, closed seasons
for hunting game birds, limits on the length of hunting seasons and bans on the
sale of any birds, eggs or nests.

The convention could not bring back the Marthas
that once blackened the skies. It was a start, however, to changing attitudes
about wildlife and slowed the possibility of other extinctions.

Extinction still threatens many species today.
The latest North American Bird Conservation Initiative report notes that
without significant conservation action 37 per cent of our bird species are at
risk of extinction.

Nearly 20 per cent of wetland birds are on a
Watch List indicating extinction concerns. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
says wetland losses have increased 140 per cent since 2004.

Habitat loss and climate change have replaced
uncontrolled harvesting as the biggest threats to birds. Both, of course, are
the result of a soaring human population.

Bird
Life International reports that 150 bird species are facing world extinction. Also,
it lists 197 species as critically endangered.

Populations
of common birds seen in urban areas also are decreasing. Various bird
organizations have reported declines in common species once considered
widespread. Bird surveys have reported that some common species have lost more
than half of their populations over the past 40 years.

Declining
numbers of birds show that diversity of life on our planet is shrinking. Earth
continues to fall behind in the struggle to regenerate from the beatings we
humans give it.

Three-quarters
of the world’s fisheries now are fully or over exploited. (You probably already
figured that out if you bought those mushy farm-raised trout that have been
raised on pellets).

More
than 350 million people do not have guaranteed clean water to drink every day.
(And, if you think that’s just a far-off problem, read up on the roughly 100
Canadian First Nation communities that are without potable water).

So
all this is not just about the birds. There is a good chance that sometime off
in the future it won’t be just Martha
lying drumsticks up in her house. It will be humankind.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

There are moments when you miss
the ‘good old days.’ Well, maybe just pieces of the ‘good old days.’

We live in times with so many
important issues to talk about. So many challenges to meet. We have access to torrents
of information.

Yet there is never time to really
talk; never enough time to sort what is authentic and what is superficial.

Social media connects more of us
more often but it also has distanced us from our traditional interpersonal
communication. So many information exchanges and conversations are the digital
banter of abbreviations, snippets, Emoticons and other shortcuts that save time
but dilute context.

One part of the ‘good old days’
that I miss, TBH, is the beer parlour. Yes, to be honest, I miss the beer
parlours, or hotel beverage rooms.

Beer parlours were abundant in every
settled Canadian landscape. Any place there was a factory, mill, mine or timber
operation, there was a beverage room nearby. They were working class social
meeting places where the news, information and opinions of the day were shared
F2F.

In Ontario they popped up like
mushrooms in 1934, six years after Prohibition ended. Ontario allowed them
in hotels, where they quickly became the most popular places for men to drink.
After the Second World War, women were allowed into beverage rooms, but they
were restricted to separate rooms marked ‘Ladies and Escorts.’

Beer parlours were simple places
in simpler times. In their original form they were rooms with tables and chairs
and seven-ounce glasses of draft beer on round trays delivered by waiters.

You had to be sitting to be
served. There were no stand-up bars like in the western movies. And, you needed
a government card to drink and the government kept an interdicted list of
persons forbidden from being served.

There was no entertainment, no
food, no gambling. No distractions, unless a fight broke out. Just beer, cigarettes
and conversation – face to face with friends and colleagues, usually after work.

There was context in those
conversations because you could read the faces and body language of the people
sitting across from you.

My introduction to beer parlours
was in Sault Ste. Marie, which being a steel plant town had by my fuzzy memory
close to two dozen beverage rooms. The most popular were the Roosevelt (The
Rosie), The New American (The New A), The Beaver Hotel, The Nicolet, The Algoma,
The Lock City, The Royal, The New Ontario, The New Toronto and The Empire. And,
of course, The Victoria House (The Vic).

The beer parlours attracted all
kinds of characters, and some of the most interesting were the owners and the
servers.

The Sault’s Victoria House was
owned by a Chinese family – the Chows. Charlie Chow established the place and
his five sons took it over in 1951 after he died.

Each of the Chow brothers – John,
King, Joe, Albert and James – had a distinct role in running the beer parlour. But any one of them could be seen pouring beer
behind the bar or delivering it to the tables.

The trademark of the Chow brothers
was their uncanny knack of knowing the favourite beer of each of their
customers. The regulars arrived at The Vic, took a seat and were served their
favourite without ordering.

The memories of the Chow brothers
were remarkable. I returned to the Sault for a visit after a two-year absence.
I went The Vic to see if any of my former colleagues were still about.

I took a seat at an empty table
and saw Jimmy Chow place a bottle of beer on a tray and head in my direction. One
hand covered the bottle label as he approached my table. The other held a
bottle opener.

“Ole We-enia, Jim,” he said in his
sing-song accent.

I hated Old Vienna beer and always
drank Crystal lager. I threw up my hands in protest. “No, no Jimmy. Wrong one!”

Jimmy snapped the cap on the beer and
placed it on the table, turning the label toward me. It was a Crystal Lager. He
went back to the bar, giggling all the way.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

In Cooperstown, New York it’s all
baseball. All baseball, all the time. All baseball everywhere.

I’m part of the baseball mania
here, cheering for my grandson and his team, the Orinda Thunder from the San
Francisco area. Thunder is one of 104 teams competing in a week-long national
tournament for 12-year-olds.

There are, by my guess, 1,500
youngsters playing the game day and night on 25 very professional-looking ball
fields. When they are not on the fields the players are lining up to get into
the world famous National Baseball Hall of Fame on the village’s main street.

The Orinda Thunder

Yes, village. Cooperstown is a
village, cuddling the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Population 1,800,
which explodes to 50,000 during times of baseball mania. One short main street.
One traffic light.

Baseball is fun and so is being
around 12 year olds. However, too much of anything is not healthy, so I sneak
away from the baseball action to find something interesting, other than
baseball, about Cooperstown.

On Pioneer Street, not far from
the Hall of Fame, I pass an ancient building. It is the Tunnicliff Inn, Est.
1802, and on the large front window is painted: The James Fenimore Cooper
Dining Room.

Of course, James Fenimore Cooper (1759
-1851) the famous American author! I skip down to the village library to
discover if he had a connection to the village. Connection indeed. His dad,
William, founded the frontier settlement in the late 1700s and James lived
there on and off for much of his life.

James Fenimore Cooper was the
United States’ first famous novelist, writing 32 novels about the roughness and
romance of frontier life. Some of his more popular efforts: The Deerslayer, The
Pathfinder, The Last of the Mohicans.

His daughter, Susan Fenimore
Cooper, also was a writer, and an amateur naturalist. She wrote mainly about
country living and nature in a time when nature was much more natural.

Her most important achievement,
however, was founding a home for orphans and destitute children. It was
established in a large house on the shore on Otsego Lake and across from the
village cemetery.

All intriguing history but nagging
my reporter’s mind is how a village with one traffic light became the Mecca of
baseball.

Craig Muder, Hall of Fame communications
director, has the answer, which he shares with the Orinda Thunder sluggers
during a visit to baseball’s shrine.

A misty piece of folklore had
it that Abner Doubleday, an army general, invented the game for his troops encamped
at Cooperstown back in 1839. The legend, nourished by some bad research, grew
and was accepted by major league baseball owners and fans.

The Cooperstown area also was
known for growing hops used to brew beer. But by the early 1930s, Prohibition
and the Depression had knocked the stuffing out of the Cooperstown economy.

Enter Stephen C. Clark, a Wall
Street financier who had a home in Cooperstown. He was the owner of what was
known as the “Doubleday Ball,” which the legend said General Doubleday and his
troops used for the first baseball game back in 1839.

He displayed the ball at the
Cooperstown Village Club, which began collecting donated baseball artifacts.
Clark proposed a national baseball museum for Cooperstown and in 1939 the
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum became a reality.

It is impossible to say where
first baseball game was played. That’s because it grew out of Rounders, an English
stick and ball game dating back to the early 1700s.

Certainly one of the earliest
forms of North America baseball was played in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia
says that a baseball-type game was played June 4, 1838 in Beachville, in
southwestern Ontario. That was two years before the Doubleday game in
Cooperstown and seven years before the birth of the New York Knickerbockers and
the “New York game,”which introduced
nine-man teams.

No matter where the first baseball was pitched, Cooperstown
is an excellent venue to celebrate the game. It is here that young players
every summer learn about team play, and how wholesome sport can build better
citizens.